TEHRAN, Jan 18 - A court in Bahrain has handed down prison sentences to three anti-regime protesters and stripped them of their citizenship as the ruling Al Khalifah regime does not shy away from its heavy clampdown on political dissidents and pro-democracy activists in the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom.

Meanwhile, a female dissident has launched an open-ended hunger strike at a detention center in Bahrain to protest her dire situation and mistreatment by prison authorities.

Her son-in-law and London-based Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, who is the founder of the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), said high-profile activist Hajer Mansoor Hassan could no longer tolerate inhumane conditions and degrading treatment, which include being denied phone calls, at the Women’s Detention Center in Isa Town.

Earlier this month, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention described Mansoor Hassan’s imprisonment and that of two other members of Alwadaei’s family as unlawful.

The body of independent human rights experts stated that Alwadaei’s relatives were “deprived of their liberty, interrogated and prosecuted for their family ties with him and that these were acts of reprisals.”

Thousands of anti-regime protesters have held demonstrations in Bahrain on an almost daily basis ever since a popular uprising began in the country in mid-February 2011.

They are demanding that the Al Khalifah regime relinquish power and allow a just system representing all Bahrainis to be established.

Manama has gone to great lengths to clamp down on any sign of dissent. On March 14, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were deployed to assist Bahrain in its crackdown.

Scores of people have lost their lives and hundreds of others sustained injuries or got arrested as a result of the Al Khalifah regime’s crackdown.

On March 5, 2017, Bahrain’s parliament approved the trial of civilians at military tribunals in a measure blasted by human rights campaigners as being tantamount to imposition of an undeclared martial law countrywide.